CAIRO — A stork once detained by Egyptian authorities on suspicion of being a winged spy has been found dead.

Mahmoud Hassib, the head of Egypt’s southern protected areas, said Saturday that local residents found the dead bird on an island in the Nile, south of the ancient city of Aswan.

In August, a local resident found the stork in Egypt’s Qena governorate, some 280 miles southeast of Cairo. Both he and police were suspicious of the European wildlife tracker found on it. Authorities later let the bird go.

However, controversy trails the bird into death. An Egyptian wildlife organization claimed on its Facebook page the bird was “eaten by local villagers.” Hassib denied that the bird had been eaten, though he didn’t know an exact cause of death.